


All My Journeys' End

by VivWiley



Category: The X-Files
Genre: (MSR if you squint), Episode: s04e14 Memento Mori, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 16:59:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivWiley/pseuds/VivWiley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully's journal entries in Memento Mori give Mulder a new truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All My Journeys' End

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters of Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, and Margaret Scully are the property of Chris Carter, Fox Broadcasting and Ten-Thirteen Productions, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended, nor are the characters being used for commercial purposes. 
> 
> Author's Note: My apologies for yet another MM-inspired bit of fanfic, but it seemed to me while watching MM, that Scully's journal entries, wonderful though they were, were somehow incomplete. 
> 
> Herewith is my humble attempt at filling in the gaps.

Allentown Hospital  
6:20 a.m.

The noises of the hospital corridor followed him into the room, shut off again with the muffled swoosh of the closing door. 

He sat down by her bed, in the pre-dawn dark of her room, watching her sleep. The lingering effects of that first massive chemo and radiation treatment weakening her to the point that she would have to stay one more day.

She had been up all night, and slept now, exhausted. He'd watched her walk away down the hallway, knowing that she needed a moment alone to pull herself together. Scully hated for anyone to see her cry. He knew from Margaret Scully that all through their first meeting in the hospital room, and during the worst reactions to her treatments Scully still hadn't shed a tear.

But he couldn't leave her for long. Giving her time to compose herself, he'd lingered in the corridor, turning the vial of her ova over and over in his fingers, wondering how he would tell her that news. How he would add to the burdens that she already carried. 

And finally, unable to wait any longer, he'd quietly entered her room, and found her sleeping.

Her journal lay next to her on the bedside table. Despite what she'd told him: that she didn't want him to see it, he couldn't help himself. He had to know. And he thought that maybe she'd understand. She, of all people, had always understood his need to find the truth. 

As he picked up the book, a slip of paper fell out. Bending to pick it up, he realized it was addressed to him:

_Mulder: I began this journal for my own purposes; to record my final journey, in a life of travels. But I found in writing these words, that it was your face that I saw before me. And I realized that I needed to say these things to you -- needed you to understand these things about me. he Truth is out there, Mulder, and I know you'll find it. But I wanted to give you these truths about me. -- S._

Oh Scully, he thought, I've always known all the truths I need to about you -- your strength, your compassion, your honesty, your dedication. I trust you better than I trust myself. But, if you thought I needed to know these things about you, I should read....

He was rationalizing, he knew. But he had to read the journal, had to learn all he could.

The first page began abruptly, with Scully's typical style, at the beginning:

_  
I was born a nomad._

_My life is haunted by journeys. By departures. By partings._

_As a Navy Brat, I traveled where ever Ahab's orders took us. Every 2-3 years, packing all my belongings into boxes. Traveling to new cities, new ports. Wondering each time what I would find there, and when the traveling would cease. The only constant was change, and the boxes._

_We would meet our boxes at the next base, the next post. We would unpack our things, and then begin the process: learn the new school, the new names, the new faces. Until it was all new. And all old._

_I learned to be quiet in those years. Melissa would get to a new place, and plunge in. She would join all the clubs, meet all the popular girls, get invited to all the dances. Charlie and Bill would join the football team, the basketball team, the baseball team -- some sport was always in season whenever we arrived. But I learned that there was safety in quiet -- in watching and learning until I had things figured out._

_I can almost hear Mulder laughing at me. Yes, I was a scientist, a skeptic, even then._

_The paths I traveled then were circular. The 3 year cycle of a Naval tour of duty has a pattern -- you learn its rhythm. Learn to anticipate the inevitable goodbyes. You make friends, sometimes very good friends, but you always hold a little of yourself in reserve, knowing there is an end._

_You teach yourself to say goodbye. You convince yourself that there will always be something better at the next base, the next school, the next house._

_And even so, you leave bits of yourself behind, every time. Every good-bye diminishes you -- but you tell yourself that you don't miss what you've lost. You tell yourself that every journey is a new beginning, a chance to gain what you've missed the last time._

_You never allow yourself to become too attached to any place, any person. You know that we all have journeys to make, and that we must make most of them alone._

_College was simply an extended tour of duty. Four years in one place, instead of 2 or 3. I never imagined that the friendships I made at the university would last any longer than others in my life. I understand the rhythms of change, of life, of departure._

_Med School was a journey of different sort. I began to realize that I would depart from the direction that Ahab and Mom wanted me to take. Forensic pathology and the FBI were unfamiliar and uninviting waters to them. But as much as I feared the distance my choices might put between us, I knew that I had to chart my own course._

_Teaching at Quantico felt like I'd found an oasis. A combination of a military-like structure and academia, the only two worlds I'd ever known. I thought that maybe I had finally reached the destination to which I'd been traveling all along._

_But paths are funny things. You no sooner think you've reached an end point -- a resting place -- than you realize it was only a mirage._

_I was assigned to the X-Files._

_Standing in your office that first time, meeting your mocking gaze, I could feel my path shifting under my feet. I didn't know then, that the movement I felt was the shock of our two paths joining._

_Our path these last 4 years has taken me to places I could never have imagined. It has taxed me physically, intellectually and spiritually -- teaching me my limits at the same time that it has revealed to me unexpected strengths._

_I've discovered that sometimes the journey is also the destination. That departures need not always diminish you. That even when the road leads back on itself, there is sometimes gain._

_I cannot imagine a better traveling companion._

_We've each departed from our shared path. We were forced apart by the closing of the X-files, by my disappearance, and yours. We have also each taken separate journeys of body and soul. But always, we've returned to our common purpose -- our conviction in each other ever strengthened._

_We are so much better together than apart._

_When we are together, Mulder, I hold nothing in reserve. You once told me that I'm the only one you trust. Know this: You are the only one who has ever seen all of me. I think maybe you already know this. But it's important that this record be accurate._

_But, Mulder, as I write this, I'm embarking on a new journey. Of all the journeys of my life, it is, perhaps, the one I fear most and least._

_I know where it will end. I have cancer. I have a tumor that will almost certainly kill me within a year or two._

_And, now, for the first time, I feel time like a heartbeat. The seconds pumping in a my breast like a reckoning. The numinous mysteries that once seemed so distant and unreal threatening clarity in the presence of a truth entertained, not in youth, but only in its passage._

_I feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me. Knowing that you will read them and share my burden as I have come to trust no other._

_That you should know my heart, look into it; finding there the memory and experience that belong to you -- that are you -- is a comfort to me now as I feel the tethers loose and the prospects darken for the continuance of a journey that began not so long ago and which began again with a faith shaken and strengthened by your convictions._

_If not for which I might never have been so strong now as I cross to face you and look at you, incomplete._

_Hoping that you will forgive me for not making the rest of the journey with you._

_********_

_Today was harder than I thought it would be. I had rehearsed the words to tell you about the cancer, but was unprepared for your reaction. Oh Mulder,_ you're _supposed to be the believer, even in the worst._

_Your eyes reflected the shock I expected, and a sense of betrayal for which I was unprepared. Until I realized that I had just told you that I was leaving. You were losing another person that you cared about, that you loved._

_I think you were scared, too, by my insistence that nothing could be done. I think you felt our paths diverging again._

_I nearly lost it, you know. Nearly lost my calm when you said that_ we _would look for a treatment. As much I know I will need your strength and your companionship in the coming days. I also know there will be roads we must each take alone._

_*******_

_I was so angry at you tonight. You looked at me, at the blood on my face in the alley, and I could see that you suddenly saw me as a sick woman. I'm fine, Mulder. I know I say that to you all the time, but it really is true. I feel fine. I have to rely on you to keep relying on me. I have to keep working, because if I don't, then They've won._

_And then you insisted that I go see Penny Northern. You must have known how the idea terrified me, but you pushed and pushed, finally resorting to reminding me that I'm an FBI Agent shirking her duty. I nearly hated you then._

_But you were right. I needed to go see Penny. Needed to face the truth in a new way. Needed to begin looking for the answers inside me._

_I'm sorry I made you call Mom. I should have been the one to call her, to explain. But somehow I thought that she would take the news better from you. I was wrong. I should have been the one to call her. I'm sorry._

_It was so hard to tell Mom to her face. So hard to tell her that she might lose her last daughter. I had to reassure her that I would be fine, that the treatments would work. I have hope, Mulder, but I am a doctor. I know the odds. This is a long shot, at best._

_Tomorrow I begin a new journey. And a battle._

_In med school I learned that cancer arrives in the body unannounced. A dark stranger who takes up residence, turning its new home against itself. This is the evil of cancer. That it starts as an invader, but soon becomes one with the invaded. Forcing you to destroy it; but only at the risk of destroying yourself._

_It is science's demon possession. My treatments -- science's attempt at exorcism._

_Mulder, I hope that in these terms you might know it, and know me. And accept a stranger so many recognize but cannot ever completely cast out._

_And if the darkness should have swallowed me as you read this, you must never think there was the possibility of some secret intervention. Something you might have done._

_And although we have traveled far together, this last distance must, necessarily be traveled alone._

*************

He paused in his reading then -- tears obscuring the words on the page. He was torn between his own agony, and the quiet strength he drew from her words. No bravado for Scully. This was pure courage. 

Would he ever fully know her? She said that he had seen all of her, he wasn't sure.

On a journey to what she knew to be a dark place, she had stopped to leave a light for him. 

She had been his light for so long. Now he had to be the one to carry the lantern. To light her way back.

He knew what he would read next. The words he had absorbed so quickly in his frantic search to find her. But the story had to be finished.

******  
 _I have not written to you in the last 24 hours because the treatment has weakened my spirit as well as my body._

_Mulder, it is difficult to describe to you the fear of facing an enemy which I can neither conquer, nor escape._

_Penny Northern has taken a downturn. I now look at her with the respect that can only come from one who is about to walk the same dark path. Seeing her, I can't help but see myself in a month, or a year. I pray that I have her courage to face this journey._

_Mulder, I feel you close. Though I know you are now pursuing your own path. For that I am grateful. More than I can ever express. I need to know that you're out there if I am ever to see through this._

*************

He paused again, glad that she had felt him near. Glad that he could, in any way, provide strength to her. Did she know that he carried her where ever he went? Did she know the terror that her doubt that she might not "see through this" raised in him?

He glanced down at the book, intending to place it back on the night stand, and was surprised to see that the entries continued:

_This will be my final entry in this journal. I thought when I told you tonight that I was going to throw this away that I spoke the truth. But I find I have one last thing to say:_

_Our journey is not yet over, Mulder. I have too much left to do. We have too much left to accomplish._

_I'm not willing to abandon the road just now, although I don't know that I will be able to complete the whole distance with you. If there are truths to be found, I want to find them with you, for as long as I can._

_When you held me in the hallway tonight, I found quiet and peace for the first time since that night in the ambulance when Leonard Betts told me that I had something that he needed. I had decided that I had to go on, but you gave me the strength I will need for the traveling._

_I think I will keep this journal, after all. As a record of a journey -- a journey that led me back to the last path I will need to find._

 

He closed the journal quietly, and looked up to find her watching him. 

For a moment he had no words. The enormity of his intrusion into her private thoughts overwhelming.

She gave him a small, rueful smile. 

"Guess I never could keep you from searching for the truth, Mulder."

He closed his eyes, her grace washing over him.

"Let's go, Scully. It's a good day for traveling."

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Tracy Chapman's song "The Promise."


End file.
